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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28378251">better just to have it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking'>crownlessliestheking</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Bleach</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkwardness, Character Study, Communication, Hueco Mundo, Las Noches, M/M, Mild Hurt Much Comfort, Post-Canon, Reminiscing, The hollow equivalent of sitting in your childhood bedroom and having a mild crisis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:29:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28378251</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is it,” he says instead. He remains right where he is in the doorway, leaning against what’s probably the most structurally sound part of Las Noches left. No wonder he’s been told to shelter under them during earthquakes. “It’s...dusty.”</p><p>“No shit it’s dusty, Kurosaki, this is a fuckin’ desert and no one’s been here in years,” Grimmjow bites out. Sharper than usual, and Ichigo isn’t sure how to deal with it. </p><p>Grimmjow is always sharp and spoiling for a fight, he’s like a knife except without any kind of hilt, all blade, and Ichigo is grabbing him the wrong way all the time. But this is different, he’s pretty sure.</p><p>[Secret Santa Gift!!]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>GrimmIchi Secret Santa 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>better just to have it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/chujellies/gifts">chujellies</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Holidays, chujellies!! I hope you like the fic, it's quite soft and chatty and mostly canon compliant but the boys are here together and having a decent time; it was a lot of fun to write and I can only hope it is fun to read :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ichigo glances around the room, and tries not to look too judgemental. He fails that this, and he can tell because Grimmjow’s scowl has ratcheted up the annoyance scale from ‘unsure but general rage’ to ‘specifically pissed off at one thing, and you are that one thing’. He looks like a cat that is contemplating biting the hand that’s sneaking in to pet it.</p><p>Wisely, Ichigo decides to keep that to himself.</p><p>“This is it,” he says instead. He remains right where he is in the doorway, leaning against what’s probably the most structurally sound part of Las Noches left. No wonder he’s been told to shelter under them during earthquakes. “It’s...dusty.”</p><p>“No shit it’s dusty, Kurosaki, this is a fuckin’ desert and no one’s been here in years,” Grimmjow bites out. Sharper than usual, and Ichigo isn’t sure how to deal with it.</p><p>Grimmjow is always sharp and spoiling for a fight, he’s like a knife except without any kind of hilt, all blade, and Ichigo is grabbing him the wrong way all the time. But this is different, he’s pretty sure.</p><p>“You didn’t come back?” he asks instead. “I thought you guys were trying to rebuild, after the War.”</p><p>“I didn’t,” Grimmjow answers, short. Alright, then. “Couldn’t’ve come back before, this place was a fuckin’ crumbling mess. And I was too busy getting my ass stitched back together by Kisuke. And then this place was fuckin’ crawling with Quincy assholes and we had to work like hell to pick ‘em off.”</p><p>Ichigo narrows his eyes. He still doesn’t much like it when Grimmjow calls Urahara by his first name. It’s fucking weird, especially with no honorific. Ichigo is still stuck with Kurosaki- <em>last name</em>, no honorifics- and they’ve been tenuously together for a year now. At this point, he’s pretty sure it’s a spite thing. It’s almost always a spite thing, with Grimmjow.</p><p>But the rest of the story- that, he knows how it ends. They didn’t manage to pick them off. The Wandenreich had gotten the better of Grimmjow, and Harribel, and Nel, and Ichigo still aches to think of it, even if all three of them would call him an idiot for taking their failure onto himself.</p><p>“Surprised this place is still standing, after all of that,” he says instead. “I didn’t think Aizen was uh, architecturally gifted.”</p><p>“Is that ‘cause it was fuck-ugly, or because you destroyed half the place while you were here?”</p><p>“...Hey. I destroyed a quarter of it, max. It was that other fight against Yam that did the rest, apparently.”</p><p>“Who the fuck was fighting a vegetable?” Grimmjow is squinting at him now, confused. Angry, but confused. It’s better than the tension that had snapped into him the second they’d stepped out of the Garganta in what remained of Aizen’s throne room. Or so he’d been told, anyway. Ichigo hadn’t exactly gotten a tour, when last he was here. Probably wouldn’t have helped; the place was and still is a maze, made worse by the fact that a good chunk of it is in ruins.</p><p>“Y’know. Yam. The big one, he was hanging out with Ulquiorra when he came to Karakura that one time?”</p><p>“Yammy. Jesus, Kurosaki, I should be flattered you know my name at this point, huh.” Grimmjow says this with something approximating a smile on his face, and Ichigo’s cheeks heat in nothing close to embarrassment.</p><p>“Well, it’s not like <em>I</em> fought him for real. Besides, if I got your name wrong, you’d beat the shit out of me,” he points out.</p><p>“Damn straight,” Grimmjow scoffs. “Shinigami, Hollow, Quincy, whatever the hell you are- if there’s one name you’re not going to forget, it’s mine. Didn’t I tell you to remember it, when we first met?”</p><p>“You put your whole hand through my friend and probably would’ve killed me, too. I was going to remember you no matter what.”</p><p>Grimmjow just hums, satisfied with that.</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>Ichigo offers a smile in return, hands tucked into his pockets. He stays where he is, just leaning against the wall- once he’s sure that it’ll support his weight, that is. The last thing he wants to do is fall flat on his ass.</p><p>Grimmjow seems content with the quiet. Unusual for him, but then again, this entire trip is unusual. He’s prowling around the room, pacing at the edges and working his way inwards. It’s like he’s looking for something, except he makes no effort to look in the small night stand, or under the bed, or even look through the door to their left that leads to either a closet or a bathroom, neither of which Ichigo is particularly sure Grimmjow’s spiritual form needs or wants.</p><p>The whole thing is an uncanny mirror of some of the ranked officers’ quarters, back in Seireitei. It’s uncomfortable, in a way that Ichigo can’t put his finger on.</p><p>It’s not that Grimmjow doesn’t need a bed, or even a futon and tatami- the guy is in <em>Ichigo’s</em> bed half the time, taking up all the space there and hogging the blankets. It’s not even that he doesn’t have clothes- he does, he was <em>in uniform</em> the first time they’d met. It’s just that nothing about this room has Grimmjow in it, and it looks like even now, he’s too big for the space. Too bright, too <em>much</em> for four stark white walls and a floor coated in dust.</p><p>Ichigo isn’t actively trying to get stabbed, so he doesn’t say any of that.</p><p>“Are you looking for something?” he finally offers, when Grimmjow has circled the room for the fifth time, and he looks increasingly antsy (read: slightly nervously murderous, instead of furiously murderous).</p><p>“No,” Grimmjow bites out. “Yes. I don’t know. Shut the fuck up, Kurosaki.”</p><p>Ichigo raises an eyebrow. “None of those were real answers to a question. Seriously. If you want help finding something specific that you left here, just let me know where to look and what it looks like.”</p><p>He’s answered by nothing but a wordless snarl, and the thud of Grimmjow flinging himself onto the bed- and then promptly sneezing four times in rapid succession at the resultant cloud of dust. Well. Ichigo sighs, and settles onto the mattress next to him, leaving a few inches of space between them. Grimmjow’s never taken well to being crowded, for all that he’s more physically affectionate than Ichigo might’ve expected. He doesn’t want to push too hard, and he’s not always been good at telling where Grimmjow’s boundaries lie.</p><p>It hasn’t been too big a problem in a while, though; Ichigo is consciously trying to be better at leaving the guy alone when he wants to be left alone, and he <em>knows</em> he’s better at reading Grimmjow’s moods. He was good at that from the start, though, ever since they first fought and he’d been told to remember that name.</p><p>(He hadn’t forgotten it, since. Some days, he thinks he knows it better than his own.)</p><p>Which is why it’s so unsettling now that he can’t really tell what Grimmjow is thinking, even when he finally answers, more agitated now.</p><p>“I didn’t leave shit here. I didn’t <em>have</em> shit, and I was- fucking fine with it, alright?” Ichigo has no idea what this is about. He hums quietly- it’s a vague noise, a cop out, but he doesn’t think that Grimmjow wants him to <em>actually</em> answer now. That’s going to get him a cero to the face, and while he’s in his spiritual form, it’ll be inconvenient if they trash the place. That, and neither of them really want to piss off Harribel. Well, Ichigo doesn’t, and Grimmjow’s toeing the line at the moment.</p><p>Grimmjow hisses out a breath from his spot at the bed. Ichigo is looking at him; he’s looking up at the too-high arch of the ceiling. The blankness of it is upsetting to look at.</p><p>“I don’t know what I thought would be here. Maybe I wanted to blow it the fuck up, since Harribel’s got the shit she needs already, and it’s not like any of us use the main part of the dome we’re under.” Grimmjow’s fingers are curled tight in the thin gray sheets over the mattress. Ichigo wants to slot his own between them, reassure him that it’s fine, he isn’t alone, but- that’s not the comfort Grimmjow needs, exactly. Not now. And the last thing he wants to do is push too hard and piss him off. Getting Grimmjow to open up is like trying to pry open an oyster with your bare hands; you might get lucky if it’s underwater or half-dead, but otherwise, the oyster decides.</p><p>“She’d let me explode the place if you were here, probably.” Grimmjow sounds like he’s thinking about it.</p><p>“I saved her Fracción, but I don’t think she’s grateful enough to let me get away with letting you cero this place to ashes,” Ichigo tells him. “We probably could’ve gotten away with it when we were fighting, back then.”</p><p>“Should’ve thought ahead,” Grimmjow agrees. “Dumbass. The furthest you ever looked was who you had to fight next.”</p><p>“Hypocrite. What were you going to do if <em>you’d</em> won that fight?”</p><p>“Not get taken out by that skinny fuck.” A sneer. “Obviously. Kurosaki, the Espada were a bunch of bloodthirsty idiots barely held together by Aizen, and a solid half of us at least would’ve stabbed him in the back the second we got a chance. Except maybe Harribel and Starrk, but they were- different.”</p><p>“Different how? Also, which one is Starrk?” he asks. He’s intrigued by this despite himself; Grimmjow hasn’t talked much, about how things were then. And he’s allowed to be curious.</p><p>“Primera. You met Harribel, she’s all about friends and family and protecting and all that.” Grimmjow’s sneering harder now, but Ichigo is fairly sure it’s for show. He doesn’t <em>like</em> being ordered around, but strength is his language, and Harribel has that in spades. It’s terrifying. “Sacrifice, maybe. That’s what she was. Starrk was- different from her, though. He didn’t give a shit, acted like he was better ‘n what we got up to. Wouldn’t lift a finger if Aizen didn’t tell him to otherwise.”</p><p>“Compared to the others I’d met, they sound friendly,” Ichigo offers.</p><p>“They were. Maybe. I just knew that they weren’t hungry for it like the rest of us were. Starrk was already at the strongest, or whatever, or he just had what he wanted, right? Whatever the fuck it ended up being. Harribel had something to protect, a cause to serve, or whatever, bet your dumb ass could relate to that. The rest of us? Ulquiorra was nothing, didn’t think he had any kind of hunger in him, but then you told me about his batshit second release. Emphasis on batshit. You don’t get to do that if you don’t give a damn, but fuck knows why he decided to. But five, right down through nine, right down through Privaron and Numeros and Arrancar just barely touching that ball? All we were doing was gunning for the next person up, making room. Clawing our way right to the top. It was hollow eat hollow, Kurosaki, even after everything we’d been through.”</p><p>Ichigo looks around the room as Grimmjow falls silent. Hollow is a good word to describe this place, he thinks. There’s nothing here but empty shells of what used to be. Maybe he really should ask Harribel if they can get rid of some of it, as a gift to Grimmjow or something. It’d be cathartic, and even if it’s not, he loves to wreck shit.</p><p>“Donburi seems alright. But I don’t think he ever <em>really</em> thought he’d be an Espada again,” Ichigo says.</p><p>“Dordoni,” Grimmjow corrects, automatic. But he continues, afterwards. “But you’re probably right. I doubt he thought he was going to make it back in. Every Arrancar that came out was better than the last, whatever Aizen wanted. The top three probably weren’t going to change too much- you don’t get Hollows like Barragan used to be all that often. But there was still a gap. And we’re Hollows, we have to close it. Tooth or nail.</p><p>“Iunno. I thought coming back here would remind me of what the fuck it is I’m s’posed to be,” Grimmjow finally says. He doesn’t sound angry, or bitter, just tired. “I wasn’t meant for all the shit you and Kisuke have given me. You let me into your fucking house with your weak-shit sisters who I could crush without thinking about it. You let them feed me. I ain’t your kept <em>pet</em> Kurosaki,” and there’s some bite to that, but it’s not genuine, Ichigo doesn’t think, “And I know you don’t see it that way, but I’ve gone <em>soft</em> ever since I met you.”</p><p>And then, softer: “What did you do to me?”</p><p>Ichigo has to speak around the knot in his throat. “Do you want to leave, then? I’m not- I don’t want to keep you around, if you don’t want to be around. There’s no- pressure to stay with me, or even at Urahara’s, when you don’t want to. ‘S not like you don’t have anywhere else to go, either. The whole of Hueco Mundo’s out here, or even other places in the Living World, if you really wanted.”</p><p>Grimmjow sits bolt upright to look at him, his eyes wide. He looks-</p><p>Scared.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“What?” Ichigo parrots. He wishes he hadn’t said anything, but if Grimmjow is staying because he feels he has to- that’s. That’s just not right. It makes him feel sick and heavy, a stone dropped right in the pit of his stomach. “I’m just- asking. If that’s why we’re here.”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Grimmjow says, savage enough that Ichigo can’t doubt him. “You idiot. You’re not making me do shit that I don’t want to do. Don’t get it all twisted in your head, Kurosaki, it’s not like that. I’m not here ‘cause I’m homesick or any human shit like that.”</p><p>“Then why?”</p><p>“...I wanted to see if I could go back.” Ichigo blinks at that. Grimmjow hasn’t exactly struck him as the type to yearn for the past- nothing about him seemed that way, not even when he’d lost his arm. He’d acted like it didn’t even matter, like he didn’t regret a single thing. Ichigo doesn’t think that Grimmjow’s <em>made</em> for regrets.</p><p>“You won’t get it,” Grimmjow relents. “It’s like regression. Hollows, if we don’t eat enough, we regress. We go back, weak, and maybe something else eats us or maybe we manage to scrape through, but there’s no more going forward. That doesn’t happen with Arrancar. Except that bitch Nelliel, but she’s basically fine now even if she leaks reiatsu worse than you do.”</p><p>He’s right, Ichigo doesn’t understand it. But he wants to. He looks around, takes in the emptiness.</p><p>“Do you feel like you’re going back, staying in the Living World so much?” he asks. <em>Staying there with me, </em>he doesn’t add, but Ichigo isn’t sure that’s it. “Because it seems to me more like you’re going forward. But not because you have to. Because you want to.”</p><p>“If I’m going back, Kurosaki, it’s a hell of a lot further back than adjuchas,” Grimmjow says, reluctantly. One hand lifts, presses to his chest over the scar that Ichigo gave him so long ago. “Not saying that Aizen wanted us to be people. But he wanted us to be a real specific way, and we’re all teeth. Look at this fuckin’ place.”</p><p>Ichigo moves over to sit on the bed next to Grimmjow, gingerly. There’s not much give to it, but he thinks that has more to do with Grimmjow than anything else- he’s forever complaining that Ichigo’s mattress is too soft.</p><p>“Yeah. It kind of sucks. But- you’re not the person you were back then, either.”</p><p>Grimmjow hums, which is as close to agreement as Ichigo thinks he’s going to get.</p><p>“Wasn’t a person back then. Still not a person.”</p><p>“Fine. You’re not the Hollow you were back then. You wouldn’t have been so nitpicky, I bet,” Ichigo grumbles.</p><p>“Only ‘cause I didn’t know what a dumbass you were. You don’t know anyone’s name.”</p><p>“I know yours.”</p><p>“True. Guess you don’t really need to know any others.”</p><p>Ichigo snorts. “That’s completely wrong.”</p><p>Grimmjow shoves at his shoulder, gentle. Then again, harder.</p><p>“See, Kurosaki? This is what I mean about getting soft. The old me wouldn’t have let it happen. But I do. I want this shit, and part of me still thinks I shouldn’t, but what the hell else am I going to do, sit here and sneeze?” Grimmjow shakes his head. He sounds better now, more resolved. “Nah. I’ve seen all I need to see for now. You really think I’m going forwards?”</p><p>“I don’t think there’s any other way to go. I mean- you were right, when you said that I was only looking far enough ahead for the next fight. Because I was. There was always- something going to happen, <em>more</em> to do. Except now there isn’t. Now I have to learn how to be human all over again, and it’s hard, and it’s <em>boring</em> sometimes, but I don’t mind it now. I’ve probably gone soft, too,” Ichigo admits. “I used to think that I’d just- join Soul Society, be a Captain or whatever-,” and here, Grimmjow snorts, contemptuous, “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. I did, after we got Rukia back, after everything was explained. It seemed the thing to do. But I don’t want to be the person who fixes things for them, and Rukia has a <em>fuck</em>ton of paperwork to do. So I’m doing dumb human shit, and hanging out with you, and I’m not the same teenager who rushed in to fight a bunch of wars for other people. It doesn’t feel like moving forward, but it is.”</p><p>Grimmjow looks at him, brows furrowed for a moment. The hand pressed to his scar curls into a loose fist.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, after a minute. “I guess maybe you do get it. You wanted to go back too, didn’t you? When you lost your powers.”</p><p>“More than anything,” he confesses. “I hadn’t known how much I’d relied on them- how big of a part of my life that was. It was hard to see past it back then.”</p><p>“’S different now, though. You’ve got the brats and your annoying human friends, and we spar sometimes, and the midget visits.”</p><p>“And I’ve got you,” Ichigo says, with a faint smile. “But, yeah. It’s easier this time around, now that I know what’s going on. Now that I know it’s probably over. I’ve gotten strong enough, don’t you think? At least until you catch up.”</p><p>Grimmjow barks out a sharp laugh. “Now that ain’t a Hollow thing to say at <em>all</em> Kurosaki. But damn right I’m going to catch up.”</p><p>“Might even do it before I die,” he teases. Ichigo shifts to get off the bed. There’s probably dust all over that thing on his shihakusho.</p><p>Grimmjow doesn’t move, though, just lets out a long breath. The edges of his mood from earlier are softened, but he’s still somber. More so than usual.</p><p>“Might even do it before the month is up, you’re getting lazy,” Grimmjow retorts. But he shoves himself off the bed, eyes the mattress, and scowls at it. Before Ichigo can say anything, there’s the flickering red of a cero in his hand, small enough not to bring the whole place down on them, but big enough to disintegrate the bed when he fires it.</p><p>That’ll have to be good enough for now. They watch the ashes for a moment.</p><p>“Let’s go home. Yuzu’s gonna make curry for dinner,” Ichigo finally says, decisive. He’ll drag Grimmjow out of these ruins if he has to- and he doesn’t think he will; Grimmjow would kill a man for Yuzu’s curry. Still, he’s relieved to find that when he reaches out and grabs his hand, the other doesn’t protest.</p><p>“Yeah. And your shitty dad’s gonna eat all of it if we’re late.”</p><p>“The old goat believes in a whole lot of things, but leftovers for me is not one of them.”</p><p>He squeezes Grimmjow’s hand, tight. “So take us home, yeah? You know I can’t open a Garganta to save my life.”</p><p>And, miraculously, Grimmjow squeezes back, cracking a smile that could be considered soft if you were Ishida and not wearing your glasses. Or Inoue, and generally had a rosy outlook. “You gotta learn sometime, Kurosaki.”</p><p>“Not with you here to do it for me,” Ichigo answers, with a shrug.</p><p>He pretends not to see the pink tinge to Grimmjow’s cheeks as the other rends the space between them into yawning darkness with a flick of his wrist.</p><p>Grimmjow doesn’t let go of his hand the whole time they’re in there, and it kindles something warm and glowing in his chest.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Big thanks to Hito and the Discord for organizing this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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